Overheard: Clear career path for entry-level technicians a must

“We were not developing our talent. And I see this with a lot of dealerships — when you’re hired as an express guy or a lube guy, it’s almost a destination. We restructured everything we did and now we don’t have lube techs or express techs or anything like that. We have entry-level technicians. And we have a clear training path, a clear path of succession: ‘This is what you do, you do this test in this time frame and it will lead to this step.’ We have a clear progression. We go out and we’re able to find much, much higher-quality candidates that are highly engaged because we lay out that career path in front of them and then we stick to it. What would normally take 12 or 14 quick-service people we do with eight or nine people because they’re engaged and they’re productive and they’re working toward a goal of becoming a technician. We’ve graduated two this year through that program; one is on the line and one is in the middle of their mentoring with one of our master technicians. We have a guy that’s been with us over 30 years as a technician, and because we’ve got some of these younger people, it’s eased his mind about getting to that point where he can retire. He’s been so vested in our company, he did not want to retire. Now he sees the newer class of technicians — younger people coming in that have been with us for two years or more ... they’re invested in the company the way he has been, we’ve grown them, they’re here, they know our processes and they’re trained up. It’s the succession plan for some of our older technicians that are looking to maybe cut back on their time here.” — Richard Lupo, fixed operations director at Apple Tree Honda in Fletcher, N.C., on “The Golden Wrench Podcast” hosted by Jason Harris.

Overheard: Clear career path for entry-level technicians a must

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